I have experienced my 1st attacks at night in the 43 camp and I have noticed that my night fighters rarely engage the enemy in air to air combat. It would be safe to say that I would shoot down 1 plane and lose about 5 due to landing. Am I missing or doing something wrong here?

I'm not completely sure, as I'm a green noob, but I think that it's ok like that. You'll see how uneffective are your night fighters! Sometimes, however, your fighters will be able to down a good ammount of enemy bombers. I think that there are some keys: - You need some time for your planes to track the bomber stream - You need some technological advantage in your radar equipment - Moonlight will help you I hope that a more experienced player answer this post to know If I'm right or I miss something else ;)

npsergio is right. kingtiger, the reason you may be loosing a lot of planes during landing is because of weather. Thick dense low clouds over your airfields may be the cause of your landing crashes. Don't expect to down tons of plans with your night fighters. The most planes I've shot down at night is about 8.

In the NJG screen you'll see your radar equipment. I'm not sure, but probably you'll be equiped with the FuG 202 radar that have a range of only 2 miles, 8% effectiveness that is reduced by window devices... So your planes need to follow the beeps they receive in their radars for a long time until they really adquired a target. Later in the game your planes will be equiped with better radars, like the FuG 212 (Range 2,5, Eff:9), the FuG 220 SN-2 (R:4, Eff:40) and FuG 240 Berlin (R:5, Eff:50, available at 1945). Of course, allied planes electronic warfare systems will be also improved. Thake a look to your NJG from time to time to see how they improve their equipment, and produce the new models... Again I'm not sure... As I told you, I'm only a noob.

Try to build the He219A-2 as early as you can, it is very effective compared to the night fighters you start out with. Historically it was not built in large enough numbers to really affect the outcome of the night bombing campaign. It's just another one of many 'what ifs' on the german side. Any Bf110 production (of any type) is truly a waste of industrial capacity.

I'm currently in a PBEM '43 campaign and shot down 130 night bombers on turn #145, losing only 5 He219s. Actually the numbers are misleading, since a good portion of those crashed on egress because of damage and bad weather. However the 219 was/is very capable, and it shows ingame.

Well, two reasons. First of all, availability date. The He219A-2 is historically available already in December '43 which is early in the game. The Do335A-6 is not available until March '45 (!) which means you will need to build 1200 of them to push the date forward to March '44, which more than 6 months down the road from a '43 campaign start. To build that number of the Do335 in 6 months time is not impossible, you need theoretically ~7 per day practically perhaps 8 is required, per day. This means 16 engines per day towards research. 12/24 per day to make it available in 4 months time btw. If you feel it to be worth it, go for it! I have not tried that route yet but perhaps I will in some campaign in the future.

Secondly, a drawback of the Do335A-6 is that it is not equipped with the Schrägemusik setup, guns firing upwards. So it must rely on standard forward firing guns to down bombers potentially making it more vulnerable to return fire. It would be interesting to hear from someone who have tried the Do335A-6.

The He219A-2 however is available already by Dec '43 and require little, if any, research to be made available early. Both types require 2 engines so that is not a factor when comparing the two. The 219 is equipped with Schrägemusik cannons, is a effective night interceptor and does the job well.

Real world production data. http://www.luftwaffe.no/SIG/RLM/RLMMar44.html There's only one entry for the He 219 in March 1944 and that's still the A-0. Production of the A-0 ended after at least 104 aircraft were produced, the majority of them in Vienna. Most of the A-2 were built in Rostock though.

BTW no trace of an A-5 (three-seater) serial production but we may never know as lots of 1945 documentation was lost. The last known version to be in serial production was the A-7.

Both are different planes... Do335A6 have more speed, but is lightly armed. Ju388 have an higher ceiling, and it have more weapons. But probably it's easier to produce the Ju388, it uses Ju88 parts and FW190's BMW801D2 engine.

I send my single pilot NJ to patrol over the targets. Searchlights will help them to fight the stream. That's the Wild Boar tactic. I send the two engines NJ to intercept the bomber stream. They'll use their radars to find their targets. That the Tame boar tactic. I use both tactics... They are not very effectives... You need luck and moon light to help them.